


The Element of Surprise

by Tanaqui



Category: Miss Sloane (2016)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25493938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanaqui/pseuds/Tanaqui
Summary: Lobbying is about foresight. About anticipating your opponents’ moves and devising countermeasures. The winner plots one step ahead of the opposition and plays a trump card just after they play theirs. It’s about making sure you surprise them and they don’t surprise you.Jane is used to the 3am calls and Liz throwing her the occasional curveball. But she never expected any of this.
Relationships: Elizabeth Sloane/Jane Molloy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Limited Theatrical Release 2020





	The Element of Surprise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shopfront](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/gifts).



The familiar special ringtone jerked Jane from sleep. Groping for the phone, Jane saw it was seven minutes to three.

“Hi. Jane?” Liz sounded wide awake, just like she always did. Those little pills she gobbled down like candy sure worked well.

Suppressing a yawn, Jane tried to gather her thoughts. “Do you—?”

“Yes, I know what time it is.” Not waiting for a response, Liz hurried on. “Look, if Socrates never wrote anything, how is it anyone has ever heard of him?”

Did Liz really call her in the middle of the night to ask her _that_? Jane briefly wrestled with the idea of switching on the light, but that would mean she’d wake up properly. If she could get Liz off the phone in the next thirty seconds, there was a slim—very slim—chance she could get back to sleep. “Plato. He was Socrates’ pupil.”

“Look, we need a meeting.”

Oh, shit. Jane did sit up then and fumble on the light. “Now?”

“There’ll be coffee and bagels.” Liz hung up.

Jane could smell the coffee when Liz opened the door to her a half hour later, and the bagels proved as excellent as always. Jane didn’t know where the hell Liz got them at this time of night, unless the Goldstone had an off-the-books menu for its regular customers. But that was Liz all over: a pedantic attention to detail and a mania for secrecy.

As Jane bit into a first bagel, Liz folded up on the couch opposite. “You heard what happened with Sandford?”

“Who didn’t?”

“Not a lot of people, it seems.” Liz looked down at her hands linked around her upraised knee and sighed. “Including the Brady Campaign. Got an approach from their lobbyists after I left that fundraiser tonight. They want me to head up the fight for them.” She nodded her head at a scrap of paper sitting by itself in the middle of the coffee table.

Jane picked it up — a page torn from a notebook — and read it front and back. “You want to do this?” 

She looked back up at Liz. The other woman was biting her lip, looking more upset than Jane had ever seen.

“It was the way he asked.” She held up her hand. “No, that’s not entirely true. Passing Heaton-Harris is the right thing to do. But it was the way he asked.”

Jane held her breath, recognising the signs. There was a speech coming, one of Liz’s specials, but it wasn’t for a room full of people who needed dazzling and inspiring. No, Liz was trying to convince herself.

“I don’t mind having a reputation for setting world records on lowering the bar for ethical limbo.” Liz choked out a laugh. “I deserve that. It was the way he asked. Thinking he could use women like that. Despising us that much.”

She raised her gaze and looked directly at Jane. “Men like Bill Sandford aren’t just why we have obscene levels of mass shootings and school shootings and gun suicides. They’re why women—.” She stopped abruptly, shaking her head. Jane felt almost cheated that Liz had caught her rage in time. Watching Liz on a roll was mesmerising. Forget supermodels and A-list actresses; Liz on a roll was the sexiest woman alive.

Liz’s gaze had turned inward. At last, she puffed out a breath. “Passing Heaton-Harris would be a chance to win big. Bigger than I’ve ever won before. Not just against the gun lobby but against all the men who think about women the way Bill Sandford does. Who exploit our broken system to keep us in our place. And it’d be one hell of a goodbye present for this shitty industry.”

And that, Jane thought, nearly dropping her coffee, was a classic Liz surprise. “You’re thinking of quitting?” she squeaked.

“I’m tired. That schmuck from Peterson Wyatt was right about me. I still want to win. I do. But I’m tired of what it takes to do it.”

“Told you today was a day for quitting.” Jane hoisted her coffee in salute.

Liz gave her a wry smile. “Academia’s not my speed.”

Jane shrugged. “Doesn’t have to be. But I’m thinking maybe I’ll stick around a while. For this, at least.”

“Actually,” Liz lifted a hand and smoothed her hair back from her forehead with the tips of her fingers, “I was kinda hoping you’d stick around at Cole Kravitz. I’m going to need an operative on the inside.”

Jane set her coffee down carefully and sat back. “Wow.” It was her turn to puff out a breath. “I guess I’m the one who gets to win prizes for ethical limbo now.”

Liz held up her hands defensively. “It’s okay. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll figure out another way. Somehow. And you won’t have to do much. But it would make it a lot easier. And I trust you, Jane. I haven’t trusted anyone like this in... a long time.”

She reached for a legal pad sitting on the couch end table and began flipping through the pages of notes.

Jane sat and watched her, her heart beating a little faster than normal as she took in the pale curve of Liz’s cheek, half hidden by a fall of straight red hair, and the contours of Liz's perfectly painted lips, pressed tightly together. 

Again, Liz pushed her hair back with the tips of her fingers and Jane knew she was probably being played. It was just how Liz was — what she did — and Jane had always been a sucker for it. From the moment she’d walked into Cole Kravitz as a gawky fresh graduate and Liz had taken her under her wing — always expecting Jane to keep up, to know her brief, to be able to deliver surprises of her own, never coddling her — Jane had fallen for her.

More than Liz would ever know. In ways Liz would never know.

Jane would never be able to reshape herself completely in Liz’s image, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to, but Liz had changed who she was and made her realize a few hard truths about herself, for better or worse.

“I’ll do it,” she said, the words falling into a silence broken only by the occasional rustle of pages being turned as Liz read over her notes and the blood beating in Jane’s ears.

Liz looked up and gave her one of those rare, real smiles. “Thank you. Now,” she gestured with the pad, “we still have a few details to work out.

In the end, it took them three nights to put the whole plan together. At last, Liz drew a line under her notes, an extravagant flourish, and threw down her pen.

“Close enough. There’s always something new comes.” She leaned back in her seat and stretched her arms over her head.

“And no use me asking about all the things you’ve planned that you haven’t shared with me.” Jane peered into the empty coffee cup beside her and grimaced.

“Nope.” Liz pushed to her feet. Jane followed more slowly. Liz still rested her hand on the dining table, not moving. “After tomorrow, it’ll be a while before we see each other again.”

“Five years?”

Liz’s lips twitched. “Minimum.”

Jane made a decision, then, that she’d been teetering on the edge of for the last three nights. She reached out and cupped Liz’s cheek in her palm. “Best do this now, then,” she murmured, leaning forward and capturing Liz’s mouth with her own.

She felt a moment of surprise from the other woman — a triumphant _got you!_ rang out inside Jane — and then Liz was kissing her back, fiercely, wonderfully, her arm snaking around Jane’s waist.

Jane was the one to break the kiss, leaning her forehead against Liz’s. Liz’s arm was still around her, her hand resting lightly on Jane’s back. “We don’t have to do this,” Jane whispered. “It’s okay. I’ll still do what we agreed.”

Liz pulled back and lifted her gaze to meet Jane’s. Then, wordlessly, she took Jane’s hand and led her to the bedroom.

~~~

Jane peered through the windshield at the entrance to the prison, impatiently tapping her fingers on the wheel. Finally, she saw Liz emerge from the door and begin to make her way down the sidewalk to the road, stopping at the edge and looking around uncertainly.

Jane got out of the car and waved, leaning against the open door. She knew Liz had spotted her by the way everything about her stilled, apart from a little lift of the chin. Liz went on not moving for a few more endless heartbeats. Then she crossed the road toward Jane, hitching the bag on her shoulder a little higher.

She looked good: her make-up applied immaculately and her hair pulled back off her face in a simple ponytail. But softer. Less brittle than Jane remembered.

“How did you—?” Liz asked, when she got close enough.

Jane shrugged. “Daniel told me.”

Liz gave a sharp nod of the head. “Daniel. Of course.” She sounded almost irritated.

She’d stopped a few feet short and was making her own inspection. Jane hoped she liked what she saw. The severe, knee-length tailored dresses and suits in neutral colours, with matching low-heeled pumps, were long gone. Today, Jane was wearing jeans with a loose, pale green button-down shirt and ankle boots.

Jane waved Liz toward the other side of the car. “Come on. I’ve got a place for you to stay while you get back on your feet.”

Liz didn’t move. “I’m not who I used to be.”

Jane shrugged. “Neither am I. But I’d like to find out who we are now... together?”

Liz hesitated for a moment longer and then broke into that smile that had always made Jane’s heart skip a beat. “So would I.” She gestured toward the trunk with her other bag. “So. Let’s go!”


End file.
